I find this article disturbing but so true. It is a bit dated but still holds true. Interesting enough a find it amusing that Mr. Farrell acknowledges that contrary to what most Republicans and Right Wingers would acknowledge, Reaganomics was nothing but irresponsible Keynesian Economics, a system supposedly despised by the Right.
After-all, just as I detailed in my book As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom all Reagan did to pump the economy up was to reduce taxes substantially as spending increased, Keynesian economics on steroids. He got a big bump in employment but not near what Clinton got with increasing taxes more so on the wealthy responsibly while holding the growth of spending to match the revenue reality.
The reason the latter worked did not require rocket science. The marginal propensity to consume of the lower classes is much higher than the rich. As such more economic activity is generated if income is not allowed to massively accumulate to the top. It is a simple mathematical fact. Bush further tax cuts with no regulation further destroyed the economy as the windfall went overseas to profit a few in America as middle class lost its manufacturing base and many professional jobs.
The policies by today’s Republicans is unpatriotic and will be the demise of the country. Until the masses wake up and understand the chaos that is on the horizon, the more profound the demise will be.
My Book: As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom
Book’s Webpage: http://amzn.to/dt72c7 – Twitter: http://twitter.com/egbertowillies
Reagan insider: ‘GOP destroyed U.S. economy’ Commentary: How: Gold. Tax cuts. Debts. Wars. Fat Cats. Class gap. No fiscal discipline
By aulBFarrell@charter.net">Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — "How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy." Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse."
Get it? Not "destroying." The GOP has already "destroyed" the U.S. economy, setting up an "American Apocalypse."
Jobs recovery could take years
In the wake of Friday’s disappointing jobs report, Neal Lipschutz and Phil Izzo discuss new predictions that it could be many years before the nation’s unemployment rate reaches pre-recession levels. Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats’ Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider — someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology — says about America, helps all of us better understand how America’s toxic partisan-politics "holy war" is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish.
But why focus on Stockman’s message? It’s already lost in the 24/7 news cycle. Why? We need some introspection. Ask yourself: How did the great nation of America lose its moral compass and drift so far off course, to where our very survival is threatened?
We’ve arrived at a historic turning point as a nation that no longer needs outside enemies to destroy us, we are committing suicide. Democracy. Capitalism. The American dream. All dying. Why? Because of the economic decisions of the GOP the past 40 years, says this leading Reagan Republican.
Please listen with an open mind, no matter your party affiliation: This makes for a powerful history lesson, because it exposes how both parties are responsible for destroying the U.S. economy. Listen closely:
Reagan Republican: the GOP should file for bankruptcy
Stockman rushes into the ring swinging like a boxer: "If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt … will soon reach $18 trillion." It screams "out for austerity and sacrifice." But instead, the GOP insists "that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase."
In the past 40 years Republican ideology has gone from solid principles to hype and slogans. Stockman says: "Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses too."
No more. Today there’s a "new catechism" that’s "little more than money printing and deficit finance, vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes" making a mockery of GOP ideals. Worse, it has resulted in "serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy." Yes, GOP ideals backfired, crippling our economy.
Stockman’s indictment warns that the Republican party’s "new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one:"
Stage 1. Nixon irresponsible, dumps gold, U.S starts spending binge
Richard Nixon’s gold policies get Stockman’s first assault, for defaulting "on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world." So for the past 40 years, America’s been living "beyond our means as a nation" on "borrowed prosperity on an epic scale … an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when
, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves."Remember Friedman: "Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct." Friedman was wrong by trillions. And unfortunately "once relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors."
And without discipline America was also encouraging "global monetary chaos as foreign central banks run their own printing presses at ever faster speeds to sop up the tidal wave of dollars coming from the Federal Reserve." Yes, the road to the coming apocalypse began with a Republican president listening to a misguided Nobel economist’s advice.
